Chapter 14 - Ad Astra
It's not working. Well, it is but at the same time it's not. The mana accumulators work exactly how they should. And they are quite efficient. With the mana accumulators I essentialy increased the rate at which I can gather mana by at least a factor of 500.
Nowhere near being enough. Not even close. In fact, it's so much not enough, it's like wanting to rival the sun in size with a tennis ball instead of a pebble. An insignificant increase. At this rate, everything is doomed. My efforts just a waste of time.
I'm truly pessimistic. It really, really doesn't look good. But I won't give up. After all, if I fail without giving it my all, I will spend the rest of my 406 remaining days as someone who has lost hope. What's the point in continuing at that point? It wouldn't make a difference anyways.
I've once already witnessed the downfall of a world, I don't need to see it a second time. I'm tired of everything going to shit. With no warning. Why does it always come without any real time to react or prepare? There is still so much I need to know about all of this, about this world. What use is the english diary I found? At least that guy managed to have a normal life in this world.
But I can't? Doomed to die from the moment I was born? With the speed I'm currently getting stronger, even if I had all the time I already spent on this planet once again before the quest fails, I still wouldn't be able to change a thing. 406 days or 6 years, where's the difference? What's the point?
I need to approach this problem differently. I've been thinking too much inside the box. What the hell have I been doing the last 6 years? Did my brain not transmigrate with me? How can I be so damn stupid?
Damn it, I need to calm down. This is also not the way forwards. Getting angry at myself won't bring me further either. And I couldn't have known it 6 years ago either. If I went exploring sooner I may have noticed it earlier, but as already said, whats the point? A couple more years of time probably wouldn't have brought me better result anyways. Actually, they may have been worse. Having too much time and less pressure may have led me to complacency. Though I doubt that I would have judged 10 or even 50 years as 'too much time' to close 8 billion holes in the damn Dimensional Barrier.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
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I think I know what to do. I realized it a bit late but it might still be enough. It's time to think outside the box. Or rather outside of this planet. It's time to leave this planet behind.
I was truly stupid, how could I not notice that? The key was mana all along. But why was I so focused on this planet? Mana is almost everywhere in this dimension. Even in space. Space is basically just free mana for me, no resitance nor obstacles to slow me down, just pure mana. A ton of mana. So much mana that this entire planet is a joke compared to what's in space.
Absurd amounts of free mana just waiting to be claimed. The question is, how am I going to harvest all of that most effectively. Generally, theres two factors that need to be considered. The first one is pickup range. I need to maximize the range at wich I can collect mana in space while moving to fully use the speed at which I travel. This also introduces the second factor, speed. The amount of mana I can gather is calculated through the following:
r = pickup range in「m」
v = speed in「m/s」
d = mana density in「mana/m^3」
t = time in「s」
M = 「r^2 * π * v * t * d」= mana collection rate in 「mana/s」
M_total =「r^2 * π * v * d * t」= total collected mana in t seconds.
This brings up a lot to consider. Since the pickup range is basically a circle when moving at high speeds, increasing the radius will enormously increase the amount of mana gathered in total since the radius is squared. I will definitely want to push this value up as far as I can.
On the other hand, speed is a tad bit trickier as there are a lot more things to consider. If I go too slow, I could potentially lose tons of mana. A problem I need to consider though is time dilation and relativity. Let's say I manage to achieve 99.999% of the speed of light. Due to the resulting time dilation factor of about 220, the time I have left would shrink to not even two full days.
Although that certainly sounds bad, it's not as bad as it seems. As the total distance covered is totally independent of the time dilation I myself experience, it wouldn't affect the total amount of mana gathered. The only thing I need to actually consider is potential collisions. Though on second thought, there isn't that much I could crash into within a lightyear or more anyways, so it's more of a nonproblem. And small rubble like asteroids and stuff like that shouldn't really be able to threaten me much.